Program Notes

With Nerve and Muscle

Beneath the clear, turquoise waters off the coast of Puerto Rico
lurks a hidden danger: tiny, single-celled organisms that harbor a
deadly toxin. Biologist Gladys Escalona de Motta wants to unmask
the secrets of the toxin's destructive ways and keep people free
from its harm.

A Latina, de Motta is one of a growing number of scientists
who are making important contributions in biology, a field where
discoveries about the fundamentals of how cells work often open the
door to new advances in health and medicine. The contributions of
three such scientists, including de Motta, are highlighted in With
Nerve and Muscle.

De Motta studies ciguatera, a toxin found in some tropical fish. If
unwitting diners consume the contaminated fish, they may experience severe gastrointestinal and neurological problems. By searching through the case histories of people who visited emergency rooms with symptoms of ciguatera poisoning, de Motta realized that larger, older fish, especially barracudas and silk snappers, were mostly to blame.

With help from snorkelers who gather samples of algae thought to
harbor the toxin, she works to isolate the compound, hoping to
discover how it affects the human nervous system. But an
unexpected offer - a chance to become dean of Natural Sciences at
the University of Puerto Rico - may alter her plans.

The hidden secrets of the nervous system also fascinate George
Langford, a professor of biology at Dartmouth College, who studies
nerve cells in squid. Peering through a microscope late one night, he
discovered a previously unknown system of movement within the
cells. "I could see bundles of proteins moving along like trucks on
invisible highways," says Langford, who describes his feeling at
that moment as one of jubilation.

As the E.E. Just Professor and advisor to African-American and
Afro-Carribean science students at Dartmouth, Langford upholds the
memory of Earnest E. Just, a Dartmouth graduate (1907) who went on to become the first African-American biologist to earn a Ph.D. in the United States. Just's pioneering work in biology was largely unrecognized by the scientific community, and he struggled
to receive funding for his work.

Today, minority scientists continue to face some of the same
challenges, says Langford. The peer review system, by which
scientists in similar fields decide which papers will be published
and which proposals will be funded, isn't really "peer" review for
minorities, since there are still too few minorities in science.

Like blacks, Native Americans are also underrepresented in scientific
fields. Navajo Wilfred Denetclaw, Jr. is one of very few American
Indians doing biological research in the United States. He credits "Johnny Quest" - a cartoon series that featured scienced-minded boys - and the chemistry set his parents gave him for sparking his early interest in science.

Growing up in a family of livestock ranchers, working with animals
came naturally to Denetclaw. But dissecting animals - a task faced
by every aspiring biologist - was another story. Because touching
dead animals conflicted with sacred principles of his cultural beliefs,
Denetclaw had to wrestle with his conflicting commitments to both
tradition and science.

While working on his doctoral degree at the University of California at Berkeley, Denetclaw was part of a nationally-acclaimed team of scientists who discovered that leaky calcium channels within muscle cells were to blame for the muscle degeneration that characterizes muscular dystrophy, a fatal disease.

Today, at the University of California at San Francisco, one of the
country's top institutes for genetic research, Denetclaw is
investigating the process by which muscles form, starting back at
the very beginning of life. Like Langford and de Motta, he also
makes time to encourage other minority students. As he tells a
group of Navajo science students back home in Shiprock, New Mexico,
"You're all capable of doing it, because I'm capable of doing it."